


The Tumbling Waves of San Francisco Bay

by Curator



Series: Onassis [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Deltans, Divorce, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Merlot - Freeform, Philosophy, Slow Burn, Starfleet Academy, holonovels, peonies, published pre-Picard show so I don’t have to use its canon, trigger warnings: parental death and spouse death (spoiler: neither is B’Elanna)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22256629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curator/pseuds/Curator
Summary: When Miral Paris heads to Starfleet Academy, Kathryn Janeway and Tom Paris begin to get to know each other again. What follows is waves and Merlot and peonies and life and love.
Relationships: Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris
Series: Onassis [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637395
Comments: 61
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

He promised he would never leave her.

And he hasn’t. 

Tom Paris has stayed with B’Elanna Torres through window-rattling fights, stony silences, and frequent separations.

Not official, marital separations. Duty, of course.

B’Elanna hadn’t been interested in retaining her Starfleet commission. “Pompous windbags,” she had deemed the admirals who lectured _Voyager’s_ Maquis crew on proper procedures. Instead, she joined the Bajoran militia. An ex-Maquis was prized out there, so Tom resigned from Starfleet — again — to take care of Miral while writing holonovels.

Despite a lack of encouragement from either parent, Miral eventually applies to Starfleet Academy. She is ten years old by the Earth calendar, but eighteen by Klingon standards and when she gets in Tom would have accused his father of pulling strings if Owen Paris hadn’t died ten months before.

So, Tom comms Kathryn Janeway. He hasn’t seen her since his father’s funeral. The _Voyager_ crew used to gather a few times a year for weddings and other lifecycle events, but this has slowed as their time at home outpaces their time together.

“Tom!” she says through the screen. Her hair is combed, but her bathrobe is evidence he disturbed her as she was preparing for work. “You look well.”

He frowns and wants to say something self-deprecating about looking tired and old, but Tom is the age Kathryn was when _Voyager_ returned to the Alpha Quadrant. He didn’t think of her as old then and doesn’t think of her that way now. So he thanks her and gruffs, “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about my daughter’s Starfleet Academy acceptance letter, would you?”

He knows instantly that she doesn’t. The grin that curls her lips is pleased, not mischievous.

“I had no idea Miral would be enrolling at the academy. Congratulations!” Kathryn takes a generous sip from a beverage in a silver mug. “We’ll have to get together when you’re in San Francisco. I live in the Inner Richmond, so not too far from the academy.”

He agrees, distracted by the easy way about her. Tom has heard, thanks to Harry, about the admiral’s divorce. The man was her second husband, nicknamed “The Asshole” by the _Voyager_ crew. The Asshole had gripped Kathryn’s shoulder as she wept through Owen’s entire memorial service. Tom doesn’t know details about the breakup and wasn’t sure what to expect, but she’s chipper, a broad smile emerging when she lowers her mug. Tom can see laugh lines by her eyes and mouth, and they suit her.

“See you in a few months. Janeway out.”

**Chapter 1**

Tom breathes in through his nose and Starfleet Academy even smells the same. He half expects to see Boothby crouched in a bed of Edosian orchids. Miral’s room is across the quad from the dorm Tom was assigned his freshman year and his fingers trail along the brick building as they walk.

He would ask B’Elanna where she lived on campus, but they’re not speaking. Tom thinks this fight was about his not wanting to accompany B’Elanna to a Bajoran harvest festival. Despite a decade of trying, Tom doesn’t enjoy Bajoran holidays. The specter of the Cardassian Occupation overshadows even happy occasions, an undercurrent of pain when there should be joy.

When they get to the small, single room, B’Elanna and Miral decide the bed needs to be where the desk is and the dresser should be wedged into a corner. They begin to push and pull and lift and roll.

“How can I help?” Tom asks.

Ridged foreheads tilt as they ponder how Tom could possibly assist in what is, clearly, a two-person job.

“Never mind.” Tom’s shoes squeak on the floor as he backs away. “I’ll explore the campus and you can comm me if you need anything.”

He wanders, trying to get lost among paths he walked as a child accompanying his father to work. Back when Owen would hold Tom’s hand and tell him he would be something special someday, that he would be one of the many Parises to be a credit to Starfleet.

Tom’s hand curls and he reminds himself that his relationship with Owen fell apart, that things can start out full of promise, then crumble.

He’s at the far reaches of campus, near Starfleet Command, when Tom hears a familiar voice.

“Mr. Paris, evasive maneuvers! Get us out of here. Warp speed, now.”

She has a padd in her hand. Her uniform is spotless. Her boots are shined. But, as she strolls toward Tom, Kathryn Janeway’s arms are open for a hug.

Not exactly flag officer behavior.

He stoops to embrace her and realizes her boots are flat, no heel.

“Helm isn’t responding, Captain,” he replies, her hug warm and light compared to the watery clinging from Owen’s funeral. “We’re sitting ducks.”

She smacks him with the padd. A shake of her head sends her auburn hair swinging, the ends brushing her uniform shoulders. “Now why couldn’t that have just been fun? You could have flown us to victory.”

Tom shrugs. 

“See you tonight.” Kathryn winks. “You, B’Elanna, and Miral are coming at 1900, right?”

His sharp inhale is through teeth. “I, uh, there’s this orientation session ...”

Kathryn’s arms fold across her chest, the padd tucked against her body. “And you forgot about dinner with me?”

Tom nods and braces himself for accusations of forgetfulness and lack of concern for others. He’s heard this lecture from B’Elanna and he’s ready for it. 

But Kathryn shrugs.

“Well, what are you up to right now?”

The tension in Tom’s stomach lessens. His arms go wide and his face turns toward the sunshine. “Exploring the grounds.”

Kathryn leans in, whispers as if she’s sharing a secret, “They haven’t changed. Let’s see if you have. Headquarters flight simulator fifteen? Are you game?”

Tom hasn’t flown anything in the last ten years except, on occasion, a civilian shuttle. Embarrassment blooms in his chest and threatens to spread to his cheeks. But, before he has a chance to demur, Kathryn begins to stride toward the Starfleet Command building, saying, “C’mon. Don’t be a sitting duck. Let’s go.”

***

He got past the Romulan warbirds on level one. But he couldn’t out-maneuver the Ferengi cruisers on level two. 

Kathryn tsk-tsks from her seat behind him.

“I expected more, Mr. Monroe.”

Ace Monroe is the protagonist of Tom’s holonovels. 

Tom swivels the simulator chair. “You’ve played my holonovels?”

Her nod is serious. “Every one.”

Tom isn’t sure how to feel about this.

His stories follow a young man who rebels against his father by joining a rock band called Caldik Prime. At one of the band’s gigs, Ace has a terrible guitar accident in which two people lose their hearing. Ace is convicted of an auditory felony and sent to prison. When he’s offered parole, Ace turns down the chance to blaze a trail through the Gamma Quadrant as the pilot of a hotrod of a starship, instead choosing to tend bar and solve mysteries from a run-down establishment called Candrine’s. The person playing the holonovel can be Ace or Ace’s steadfast friend and mystery-solving partner, Larry Prim.

Over a decade, Tom has written about twenty installments in the series. His play numbers are good, not great. He’s won a few holo-awards and the job’s flexibility allowed him the time with his daughter that was most important.

But Tom doesn’t usually talk about Ace Monroe with anyone except Harry or his publisher. B’Elanna doesn’t like holonovels and Owen didn’t care for the holodeck in general. Before she died, Tom’s mother played his first novel and, when he asked, she said it was, “Interesting. Nice. Very nice.” Miral and Tom’s sisters say they’ll play when they have time.

Yet Kathryn leans forward, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. “I liked the twist in the most recent one when Ace faked his own death to get the killer to confess. When does the next installment come out?” 

Tom wonders why she never mentioned playing his holonovels before, but he usually sees her at large gatherings and some people consider their holodeck choices to be private.

The last time just the two of them were together was when he resigned from Starfleet. Sunlight from Kathryn’s office window had caught her brand-new admiral’s bars as she suggested he take a few days to reconsider. Tom had declined, laying his commbadge on her desk. She had picked it up, held the metal as if it was something sacred, then said to keep in touch, to call her by her first name and not be a stranger.

Sixteen months later, he had shouted that first name at Chakotay and Seven’s wedding. Kathryn had turned from her table and, over pulsing music from the dance floor, introduced Tom to her first husband, Iliam. The tall, broad Deltan studied massive compact halo objects at the Daystrom Institute — and six years later was ripped apart by their gravimetric forces along with his research team and laboratory spacecraft.

In the headquarters holoroom, Tom eases an trisolinear chip from his pants pocket.

“I was going to drop this by my publisher’s office before leaving Earth. But, if you want ...”

Grinning, Kathryn taps her badge. “Janeway to Wildman. Cancel my afternoon appointments. I have a mystery to solve.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Tom gazes at Kathryn in wonderment. “Was that Naomi Wildman?”

She laughs, raucous and wild and free. “Just graduated from the academy and already the best ‘admiral’s assistant’ I’ve ever had!”

***

Tom’s head shakes as he and Kathryn walk through the simulation of a rain-soaked alley toward the door to headquarters holoroom eight. She’s practically strutting.

“But how did you know the baker was the thief?” 

She rattles off a series of clues.

Tom grimaces. “I made it too easy. I’ll revise.”

“No!” She touches his forearm and they stop to face each other. “It was fun. Make the clues too difficult and it’s not a game anymore. Keep it the way it is.”

They chat about holonovels they’ve liked and ones they didn’t. She’s telling him why she prefers Ace Monroe to Dixon Hill when the door opens and B’Elanna strides in. She glares at her husband, but her face softens when she notices the woman next to him.

“Colonel Torres!” Kathryn glances at Tom, then greets B’Elanna with a hug. “The Bajorans are fortunate to have you, though I’m delighted Starfleet has enticed your daughter. Welcome to San Francisco.”

“Thank you. It’s good to see you.” When the embrace ends, B’Elanna shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “I’m sorry to interrupt you two catching up, but —”

Tom smacks his forehead. “Orientation! Are we late?”

“Not yet,” B’Elanna says. “But we need to hurry.”

Kathryn waves goodbye to the couple and instructs them to let her know if they’ll be in town to pick up Miral at the semester break. It would be lovely for the four of them to spend time together. B’Elanna agrees, but when Tom and B’Elanna get outside, she doesn’t say anything. Tom isn’t sure whether the silence means B’Elanna wants to focus on getting to orientation on time or if she’s still mad at him. He doesn’t ask.


	2. Chapter 2

It isn’t that Tom keeps thinking about his shameful flying in the simulator at headquarters. It’s that he figures Ace Monroe could do some piloting in the next installment of the series, so training exercises are a great way to ensure the holonovel is as accurate as possible.

The bedroom between Miral’s and the one Tom and B’Elanna ostensibly share became a holoroom five years ago. Tom installed the hologrid himself a few months after B’Elanna said she couldn’t take it anymore, didn’t want to keep trying for a second child, couldn’t continue the intrusive medical procedures to try to lower the barriers to human-Klingon conception.

Tom had been relieved. Sex on a schedule made intimacy a chore and he’d hoped to return to the fun of spontaneous, no-expectation lovemaking.

He’d been wrong. 

But the holoroom made his work easier and Miral’s friends had been in awe of the fun they could conjure within her home. Wary of what the kids might try, Tom set the safeties to allow only child-appropriate scenarios. He can override the command for programs that aren’t Ace Monroe stories, but he never has.

No matter how often he thinks about it.

With Miral at the academy, Tom pretty much lives in the holoroom. He practices flying. He plots out Ace’s next adventure. He sleeps in a bunk he programmed in one of his sailing simulations and he replicates food to eat at bistros and cafes around the quadrant. He exchanges subspace letters with Harry and his sisters. He has a few pals on Bajor, mostly the fathers of Miral’s friends. But Tom doesn’t reach out to them and they don’t contact him either.

The person Tom talks with the most is Miral. They comm each other often. B’Elanna is on a two weeks away, one week home rotation, but sometimes Tom forgets which week is which.

B’Elanna will be away when Miral begins her break, so Tom volunteers to get her. He comms Kathryn and arranges for the three of them to have dinner. He goes to the market for a bottle of Bajoran springwine and packs it between shirts and pants in his duffel bag.

He feels like a first-year cadet when he brings the bag onto campus and Tom keeps his face as placid as he did when he sneaked all manner of alcohol into various academy buildings when he was underage.

“ _Dad_.” Miral drags the one syllable into three, her horror echoing off the walls of her tiny dorm room. “I can’t have dinner with Admiral Janeway! She’s going to be my professor in a few semesters for Advanced Borg Studies.”

“All the more reason to visit with her.” Tom stretches his legs from Miral’s desk chair while she sits cross-legged on her narrow, Starfleet-issue bed. “You only see Kathryn at weddings or funerals. She’s worth getting to know on an everyday level.”

As Tom speaks, it dawns on him that he hasn’t known Kathryn Janeway on an everyday level in more than a decade — and even then she was under constant stress.

“No.” Miral’s arms cross to match her legs. “You’re going to slip up and call me by some embarrassing nickname or otherwise cause her to see me as a child instead of a future officer.”

Tom smirks. “Now what makes you think I would do that, Mirabella? You really think your old man would embarrass his little Minuet by singing her a Mirallaby?”

So Tom finds himself ringing the chime to the Starfleet apartment alone except for a bulbous bottle of blue liquor.

“Tom!” Kathryn is wearing white slacks and a black shirt with some kind of black scarf around her neck. “Come in! Where’s Miral?”

Tom explains and Kathryn chortles. She removes the extra place setting from the dining table and brings the springwine to a coffee table where she has already set out appetizers. She opens the bottle, pours, then sits in an overstuffed armchair as Tom settles across from her on a small couch. 

“So, what’s going on with you and B’Elanna?” Kathryn asks, her wine glass cradled in her hand.

Liquid that traveled fifty-two light years nearly squirts out of Tom’s nose. He recovers and manages, “Why do you ask?”

“Because if B’Elanna’s eyes when she saw you in the holoroom were phasers, you would have been incinerated.” Kathryn takes a sip. “And you have a terrible poker face.”

“Sorry.” Tom’s cheeks are warm. “Nothing to report.”

She hums, a quick, low sound of disapproval, and changes the subject. 

In the middle of dinner, the comm chimes and Kathryn excuses herself to take the call from headquarters. With time to look around, Tom inspects each painting on the walls — mostly Art Nouveau with the looping signature of Phoebe Janeway in the right-hand corner — and the holo-images on tables. Tom doesn’t recognize any of the people except for Kathryn’s mother and sister, both of whom he met briefly at the Starfleet party celebrating _Voyager’s_ return. The largest holo-image is a landscape of what looks like sunrise over San Antonio, California. Tom holds that one in his hands and there’s something about it he finds beautiful. Not the colors or the buildings. Tom isn’t sure why, but this image is important. He replaces it next to a vase of flowers on an end table.

When Kathryn returns, she storms over to the dining table and Tom retakes his chair across from her. 

“Officers today are soft!” Her fork impales mashed potatoes. “Always expecting the best accommodations, their pick of assignments right out of the academy.”

Tom swallows a mouthful of green beans. “As I recall, you worked at headquarters immediately after graduation and then joined a covert mission to try to prevent a war. Pretty fancy stuff.”

She rolls her eyes. “You have a point. But I worked for your father and he was ornery and exacting and then the covert mission failed miserably and helped plunge the Federation into a decade of war. So maybe I should have been sent someplace out of the way.” She snaps her fingers. “Wait. Did that, too, and it didn’t go so well, either.”

Tom blinks. Did Kathryn just joke about the Delta Quadrant?

“Anyway,” her fork scoops potatoes more delicately, “yet another officer has talked his way out of a mission I’ve been trying to staff for close to six months. Departure is in five weeks, and I’m running out of options.”

“What is it you need?” Tom thinks he is making idle conversation, sorry about her problems but certain he can’t contribute to solving them.

She looks straight at him. “I need a pilot.”

His fingers twitch. “How badly do you need one?”

“Tom,” she lays down her fork, “there was a time when I would have trusted you completely at the helm, but —”

“Can you access the headquarters simulator?” He’s listening to himself, curious as to why he sounds eager, almost desperate. “Right now?”

They beam directly to the flight simulator and she watches him. His hands aren’t as nimble as they once were and his reaction time isn’t the best. But he easily escapes the Romulan warbirds, flies past the Ferengi cruisers, barely pauses from impulse to warp to get away from the Breen warship. He’s about to slip through a hole in the Borg defense grid when she taps her commbadge. 

“Janeway to Wildman. How long would it take to reinstate a commission for an officer who has been out of Starfleet for more than ten years?”

“If we rush the paperwork, ma’am, a week.”

“Rush it. I’ve got a pilot for the mission to the Paulson Nebula.”

***

When Tom tells B’Elanna, she smiles hugely. “You’ve been too isolated, Tom. Getting out there, flying again — it’ll be good for you.”

“But it’s a six-month mission,” he protests, not sure why he’s arguing. “We’ve never had a separation that long and there’s no communication, not even in case of an emergency.”

“It’s fine, Tom. This is the right choice.”

When she joined the Bajoran militia, B’Elanna had asked Tom to sign on, too. But those ships were clunky and slow compared to _Voyager_ , and he had refused. 

The _Ramon_ , the ship he’ll be flying to map the Paulson Nebula, is tiny — just four decks. The crew is Kathryn in command, Tom at the helm, five stellar cartographers, a nurse, an engineer, and science officers to assist wherever needed. There isn’t even a sickbay, just a room with a biobed.

Not that Tom has been poring over the specs that arrived with his orders and uniform. 

Not that he reprogrammed his flight simulations to the bridge of the _Ramon_ , where the helm interface he’ll use has a responsiveness at point-zero-zero-three seconds and thrusters so powerful they can direct the vessel through the nebula’s swirling dust clouds when impulse is too dangerous. 

Not that he’s wished he could tell his father about this mission, the first time Starfleet has attempted to map the Beta Quadrant anomaly littered with rocks and gasses.

Tom will work double shifts and bunk with a lower-ranked officer. As a lieutenant commander — the promotion he received long ago, a few days before he resigned — Tom will be third in command. The engineer outranks him.

“Why are you leading this mission?” Tom had asked Kathryn when they discussed details over dessert at her apartment. 

She had stared at him for a moment, unblinking, then said, “I’ve pushed Starfleet for years to map the Paulson Nebula. Turns out, nobody thought it was important but me.”

Tom thinks it’s important. The nebula is near major trade routes and the border of Romulan space from before the supernova. It’s composition is dilithium hydroxyls, magnesium, and chromium — all useful elements. He’s amazed no one has tried this before.

When Tom kisses B’Elanna goodbye, he holds her face in his hands and thanks her for understanding why he’s rejoined what she rejected. She steps back awkwardly and says she’s happy for him. When Tom walks Miral to her dorm, he’s in uniform and a cadet calls him “sir” and he gets a faraway look in his eyes that Miral misunderstands.

“Dad,” she says, “do you regret staying home with me, not going back into Starfleet?”

His hug is so fierce even her Klingon lungs shudder. “Not for a moment, baby girl. Not for a single second.”

He reports to Utopia Planitia, a Starfleet duffel bag on his shoulder, a Starfleet padd in his hand, and a grin on his face that’s pure Tom Paris.


	3. Chapter 3

This is Tom’s favorite time on the _Ramon_.

An officer only works one shift at a science station on the bridge, heading to stellar cartography or engineering for the remainder of the workday.

That leaves Tom and Kathryn alone on the bridge.

She monitors ship’s systems and scans the space ahead from the computer at her command chair. She’s basically an operations officer with more responsibility. Tom uses her information as well as navigational scans to keep the _Ramon_ on course.

It’s not an easy job. 

Piloting through the nebula is a puzzle. Tom has to keep to the mapping pattern while avoiding obstacles. If he flies too quickly, he throws off stellar cartography. If he flies too slowly, nebular dust can clog the deflector dish and stall the ship. He switches constantly between thrusters and light pulses of the impulse engines and he has to announce minor course changes and explain them, which happens every few minutes. 

But, between all that, he and Kathryn chat.

During the five months the _Ramon_ has been in the nebula, she’s mentioned her mother’s persistent hypertension, her sister’s bratty kids, and her own busy life in San Francisco. She’s part of a parrises squares team, a velocity league, and a tennis club.

“I had no idea you’re such a jock,” Tom had teased and Kathryn had snorted.

He’s spoken of his relief Miral’s first semester went well and his curiosity about her second term. He doesn’t mention B’Elanna and Kathryn doesn’t push him, not since he shut her down over appetizers back on Earth. She doesn’t talk about either of her husbands.

Every so often the conversation turns to _Voyager_ and they’re reminiscing about Kes, actually, with Tom describing how the locket he replicated for her was similar to one he gave Miral on her first day of kindergarten, when Kathryn stiffens in her chair. It’s almost time for the relief officers to come on and her voice had been gravelly with fatigue. But she shoots to her feet, almost jittery. “Full stop.”

Tom follows the order. He taps his navigational interface to try to figure out what Kathryn detected on her scans, but all he can see is dust and other small compounds. There isn’t even an asteroid.

She’s already at the science station, jabbing the console with such force Tom worries she’ll fracture an index finger, when he receives her data — baryonic matter drift, no radiation detected. Kathryn usually speaks her reports to the helm, but he understands why she didn’t. 

Her readings suggest a massive compact halo object.

The drift estimate puts the object more than five thousand kilometers away, not a danger to the ship if they stay where they are.

The relief officers come on and Kathryn doesn’t pause in her work. Tom can see she’s extending sensor range, but it’s a pointless exercise and he knows she’s aware massive compact halo objects follow no known pattern. Finding one makes it no more or less likely that they would find another, and the _Ramon’s_ sensors could have detected this one much later and there still would have been time to avoid it.

With the conn handled — and the ship at full stop, anyway — Tom should take his rest rotation. On the _Ramon_ , every day is breakfast, work, fifteen minutes for lunch, work, a thirty-minute dinner, work, then falling into bed before starting all over again.

But Tom stays, sitting at the secondary science station no one uses and resting his eyes while his ears stay alert.

It takes an hour for the massive compact halo object to drift out of their mapping pattern. Kathryn orders the conn officer to resume course. She blinks when the relief pilot, not Tom, says, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Hey.” Tom touches Kathryn’s elbow and she jumps. “Let’s go.”

She sends readings and instructions to the officer in command. She keeps it together in the turbolift and on the way to her quarters where Kathryn doesn’t ask Tom to walk in with her, but she tugs at his sleeve as she enters her code and he understands.

The quarters aren’t big enough for a sofa and there’s just one chair and it’s for her desk. So Kathryn sits on the narrow bed and Tom sits next to her.

Her forehead falls into her hands.

“Pretty stupid, huh?” she says. 

“Not stupid at all.”

“The ship was never in danger. The ship never would have been in danger. Gravimetric sensors would have hit the brakes within ten minutes and everything would have been fine.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t be vigilant.” 

Tom has no idea if the Daystrom Institute sent someone to Kathryn’s home to tell her or if it was a comm call or if there was some other way she found out her first husband died due to a massive compact halo object. But, however it happened, that’s where she is now. And she’s breathing too evenly, as if she’s forcing herself to stay in control, as if that place where her memories are taking her is something she’s endured before and she knows she just needs to hang on, to get through some sort of process and emerge on the other side.

She doesn’t cry, but she wilts, crumpling from her shoulders, and Tom catches her and holds her tightly.

***

The minute the turbolift doors close behind the science officer departing the bridge, Kathryn apologizes to Tom.

“I shouldn’t have kept you up so late. My behavior was an aberration and I’m sorry.”

He can’t swivel to face her, the nebular dust is too dense for him to glance away from his console, but Tom says, “I have an apology of my own.”

In her quarters the night before, Kathryn had been quiet for a long time, the heels of her hands pressed over her eyes, her head on Tom’s chest as he held her. On her desk was a vase of flowers, the same kind that had been in her apartment in San Francisco. The fat, pink bulbs were out of place on the bare-bones ship, yet, somehow also exactly where they were supposed to be.

After a while, Tom had shifted his weight, uncomfortable from holding his arms still for so long. Kathryn had pulled away and looked at him. Her eyes were dry, but red from the pressure of her hands.

He asked if she wanted him to stay or go. 

She didn’t say anything, but she shook her head slightly and he got the hint to leave.

Tom was back in his own quarters, pulling off his boots as quietly as possible so he wouldn’t wake his roommate, when he realized that offering to stay could have been perceived as inviting himself into her bed.

So he wants to clear that up.

“When I asked if you wanted me to —”

“I knew what you meant, Tom,” Kathryn says from her command chair. “It’s fine.”

They return to their readings.

He announces a course change.

They tap at their screens.

“We could talk tonight,” Tom blurts. “If you want to.”

“My quarters after shift?”

He accepts.

***

She drags the chair to the narrow area between the bed and the desk.

“It’s absolutely antithetical to my well-being to fixate on the unalterable,” Kathryn says as she points to the chair to indicate Tom should sit.

He settles in the seat. “How do you figure?” 

She walks around the desk and sits on the bed, her legs dangling off the side. “Deltan hypersensitivity dictates time in the present deserves the utmost focus. Memories, reminiscences, planning, anticipation, goals — that’s all fine. But the danger is wallowing, allowing the past or future to become overwhelming. That’s what I did last night, and it’s not in line with the way I try to live my life.”

Tom stretches his legs in front of him, angling them so they don’t touch Kathryn’s uniform trousers or boots. “Must be an appealing philosophy for someone who hates time travel.”

“Very.” She winks.

Tom conversed with Iliam at social gatherings over the years, but most of what Tom knows about Deltans is from textbooks and rumors. The species is renowned for skills in arts and mathematics, for bodies that are hairless except for eyelashes and eyebrows … and for sexual attraction so legendary that the few Deltans in Starfleet are required to swear an oath of celibacy.

Tom tries not to think about that last part.

Or the fact that Iliam did not work for Starfleet.

But Kathryn tells Tom how she met Iliam at a lecture on massive compact halo objects, how she moved into his book-filled home on Alameda Island in San Francisco Bay, how they would go for a run in the mornings just as the sun broke over the horizon.

“They were the best years of my life, Tom, and I was fortunate to have them. But the past is a tool to understand the present — a springboard toward betterment or understanding of the way life is, not the way it was or could be.”

Tom isn’t sure what to make of Kathryn’s outlook, but he has to ask.

“So, he got you into this way of thinking?”

She shakes her head. 

“Iliam exemplified it and I loved it, but grief pulled me away — and, actually, pushed me back — but in between there was … what’s the name the _Voyager_ crew bestowed upon the next one?”

Tom clears his throat. “The, uh —”

“Ah, yes,” she chortles, “‘The Asshole.’ Accurate. Unkind, but accurate. People make mistakes, Tom, what can I say?”

Tom remembers The Asshole. Huge guy, a Federation Navy commander who always seemed to have an arm on Kathryn’s shoulders or waist. If she would go to the bathroom, he would wait outside the door.

“It was your father’s funeral, Tom,” she says. “I got home that night and realized I was sleepwalking through my life. I married The Asshole because I didn’t want to be alone again, but I was lonelier married than I would have been single. So, I divorced him, reacquainted myself with the Deltan way of life, and found a peace with that.”

She’s looking at him and Tom realizes what’s going on here. 

It’s his turn. 

She confided in him and they’ve been on this ship for five months spending nearly all their waking hours together and she hasn’t pressed him about B’Elanna, but her eyes are wide with concern and he needs to say something.

“It’s late.” Tom stands and moves sideways to get through the narrow area without bumping Kathryn’s legs. “Goodnight.”

The door hisses closed behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

Two hours after Kathryn told him she believes the past is a springboard to understand the present, Tom’s breath catches as he listens to his roommate snore.

Tom knows Kathryn’s first Starfleet mission went awry, leaving her — and his father — as Cardassian prisoners of war requiring rescue from an elite team of officers.

And, obviously, he knows her quick mission to the Badlands led to seven years in the Delta Quadrant.

Somehow, Tom expected mapping the Paulson Nebula would result in being stranded or adrift or otherwise on the _Ramon_ for a hell of a lot longer than six months.

Of which only four weeks remain.

The artificial gravity works fine, but Tom has the sensation it’s gone offline.

He ignores his shaky legs to stand and, in his t-shirt and shorts, walk down the corridor to tap Kathryn’s chime.

It takes a moment, but the door slides open and she’s in her bathrobe, her hair messy and her eyes squinting and blinking from the light in the corridor. Tom hears the words come out of his mouth and recoils because they sound so much worse out loud.

“I don’t want to go home.”

He doesn’t want to see Miral’s room, empty and not truly hers since she’s gone to the academy. He doesn’t want to see the holoroom where he now understands he was hiding from the real world. He doesn’t want to see B’Elanna. 

He loves B’Elanna.

But he doesn’t want to see her and he’s been pushing her out of his mind while he’s been on this mission that every sane pilot turned down because it’s so damn intricate to fly through the nebula that there’s not much brainpower left for anything else, but Tom didn’t want anything else because the _Ramon_ has become a hiding place as much as the holoroom was and Tom doesn’t want to believe his life is so terrible that he would hide from it.

Kathryn pinches the bridge of her nose. “Come on in.”

***

Rest rotation on the _Ramon_ is short and his story is long, but Tom tells Kathryn the important parts. 

And Kathryn says he should be grateful.

“What?” Tom’s hand is on his chest as the pain of admitting his marriage hasn’t been happy in a long time, that he hasn’t been happy in a long time, became a physical ache as he spoke what he hadn’t wanted to believe.

“You could have never realized your problems. Or you could have realized them too late to talk to B’Elanna, to find out if the two of you can make things better or part amicably. You can use every moment of the remainder of our time in the nebula to think things through, to decide how you want to live the rest of your life. This is a gift, Tom.”

They are sitting side by side on her unmade bed and he wants to bury his face in her pillow and sleep. But he could have slept in his own quarters. He came here for support and she’s trying to help and Tom knows he should appreciate that.

But Kathryn seems to be reading his mind as she pats his thigh, then stands. 

“Lie down. Get some sleep. I’ll have the relief conn officer stay on for as long as I can, all right?”

He tilts, then he’s unconscious.

When Tom wakes up, his eyes focus on the vase of flowers on the desk. The pink bulbs don’t belong in this room and neither does he. But, yet, they do — and he does, too.

***

The _Ramon_ emerges from the nebula and Kathryn hails headquarters. “Mission accomplished!” 

The data they’ve gathered will keep Starfleet scientists busy for years. 

“Excellent work, _Ramon_ ,” comes the reply. “See you soon.”

Tom lays in a course for Earth and engages warp drive for the first time in six months.

The last few weeks have been quiet. 

He took Kathryn’s advice and, as nebular dust allowed, thought about what he wanted.

Tom wants to ask B’Elanna if she still would like him to join the Bajoran militia with her. Maybe if he shakes up his life, things will settle the way they should. When he tells Kathryn this, she says that’s good and when the future becomes the present, he will have clarity.

He remains unsure about her overall philosophy, but he’s starting to buy into some of the ideas.

When the _Ramon_ docks at McKinley Station, Kathryn shakes the hand of each officer and thanks them for their service. Tom hangs back and, with Starfleet duffel bags on their shoulders, Kathryn walks him to his transport to Bajor.

“Let me know what happens,” she says. “I’ve enjoyed our time together.”

“Thank you, Kathryn,” Tom says. “For everything.”

He wants to hug her, a friendly hug between people who have hugged many times before, but he doesn’t. She waves as he boards and he waves back.

He sleeps most of the ride and, when he wakes up, Bajor fills the viewports.

Tom fights the urge to stay on the transport, to ride back to Earth, the planet where he grew up and has always felt most comfortable. Broadening horizons is important, he tells himself and the inner voice sounds like his father.

When Tom walks into his house, B’Elanna is at the kitchen table. Her head is in her hands. Tom knows Miral is fine, he’s received subspace letters from her and they have plans to comm in the next few days. But B’Elanna is slumped over like someone has died.

“What is it?” Tom puts a hand to her shoulder.

B’Elanna looks up and her face is contorted by pain. She whispers, “I didn’t miss you, Tom. I didn’t miss you at all.”

And Tom realizes no one died. 

B’Elanna is mourning their marriage.

It’s over.


	5. Chapter 5

It takes only a few days.

Neither of them want the house.

Neither of them want the furniture.

Neither of them want anything except a few holo-images of their daughter growing up so they have those duplicated and pack them into separate storage containers.

When they comm Miral, she doesn’t seem surprised — and she doesn’t want anything at all. Not her academic awards, not her holo-images, nothing.

They walk to a transporter stasis company and each receive a trisolinear chip that contains the patterns of their individual storage containers and the items within.

B’Elanna will live in an apartment on a militia base. 

Tom will go to Earth.

They embrace. It’s not goodbye because they know they will see each other in the company of their daughter. But it’s their last time in each other’s arms and, despite everything, they linger, B’Elanna’s head resting on Tom’s shoulder, his hand on her back.

“Take care of yourself, Flyboy,” she says. 

“See you around,” he replies.

On the transport, Tom requests Starfleet housing and a new posting, preferably on Earth. He wants to continue his Ace Monroe series, but a posting can ensure he spends time with flesh and blood people. Tom doesn’t want to lean on Miral too much.

His housing request comes through within the hour and it’s a good one — a studio apartment in the North Beach area of San Francisco. On a clear day, Tom will be able to see Alcatraz Island from his window. 

He should go there. Set up. Prepare for his duty assignment. 

But when the transport arrives it’s 0430 and Tom’s feet don’t take him to North Beach. They take him to the Inner Richmond. His commbadge gains him entry into the building and he rides the lift to the floor. He taps the chime. 

As he waits, it occurs to Tom that if he were writing this as an Ace Monroe holonovel that this is where he would throw in a plot twist. 

Another man would open the door. 

She wouldn’t be home. 

She would refuse to talk to him.

But, just like on the _Ramon_ , when Kathryn’s door slides open she’s in her bathrobe, her hair messy and her eyes squinting and blinking in the light from the corridor. Only this time, neither of them say anything. She stands aside, motions for him to enter. He drops his bag by her door and stumbles to her couch. She sits next to him and he leans into her arms and she holds him as he weeps for his marriage, for his father dying, for his own future he can’t see yet, for all of it.

***

Kathryn brings him tissues and a silver mug with coffee in it.

Tom wipes his eyes and drinks, the hot liquid burning all the way down.

“I’ll help you, Tom,” she says. “I’ve been there.”

He isn’t sure if she’s referring to her divorce or when she was widowed, and he doesn’t know how to ask. He’s told her so much and she’s accepted everything. Demanding more seems wrong.

Kathryn pats Tom’s shoulder and disappears into her bedroom, her own silver mug of coffee in hand. He places his mug on an end table and notices the vase there. Tom has never cared much about flowers, but this is the same type he saw here before and on the _Ramon_. The bulbs are solid, but within each one is a riot of petals. Maybe that’s why Kathryn chooses them. Maybe in these fat flowers she sees her self-contained life with its riot of Starfleet and loss and happiness.

She walks back in, her hair combed, her uniform on.

“What kind of flowers are these?” Tom lifts a pink bulb with his index finger.

She smiles. “Peonies.”

“Why do you like them so much?”

She shrugs. “They’re pretty. Why?”

He explains his reasoning and her eyebrow rises. 

“Not a bad theory, but, sometimes, Tom, a peony is just a peony.”

Tom flushes slightly at having offered his opinion on something that perhaps didn’t merit the consideration he believed it did. 

Her boots are by the front door and, as Kathryn fastens them, she says, “Do you want to stay here or move into your apartment?”

Tom catches the reversal. On the _Ramon_ , his phrasing could have been construed as inviting himself into her bed. Now, he presumes she means where he should go while she’s at work, not for a longer-term arrangement. But she’s been kind to him and he doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable, so Tom immediately says, “I’ll move in. Will you be my guest for dinner, though?”

She nods. “See you tonight.”

Then she’s gone and Tom turns to the peonies again, to get lost in the riot of petals that are all one bulb.

***

The studio apartment has Starfleet furniture and Tom’s fingers skim the light grey dining table and chairs as well as the double bed that folds into a sleek couch at the tap of a keypad. There is a transporter room off the lobby and Tom brings his trisolinear chip so the operator can retrieve the patterns stored inside. Back in his apartment, Tom opens his storage containers. He tucks his clothes into drawers that disappear into the wall, places holo-images on shelves. He pulls back the drapes and keeps them open so he can see the tumbling waves of San Francisco Bay. Tom stands at the floor-to-ceiling window for a long time.

His first guest arrives with a bottle of wine. He replicates glasses.

Kathryn quickly moves to the window. “Beautiful view. Do you like it?”

“Miral is supposed to come over tomorrow.”

Tom’s response doesn’t answer her question, but Kathryn simply asks how Miral is doing with her parents’ divorce.

He shrugs. “She said it makes sense and this is how things go.”

“Positively Deltan,” Kathryn says. “Good for her.”

Tom has been thinking about this and he tries to keep his tone level, not angry. “Except it doesn’t work that way. You said I should decide what I wanted. I wanted to try again with my wife. But B’Elanna decided things were over between us and that was that.” 

“Well, of course.” Kathryn takes an empty wine glass from Tom’s hand and motions for him to open the Merlot she brought. “Knowing what you want tells you if you’ve received it or not. Deltan philosophy doesn’t guarantee life works out the way you’ve planned. It offers clarity — an understanding of how your past led to your present, how your decisions or the decisions of others culminated in what you have and why you may or may not want to change it.”

Tom replicates a bottle opener and considers this. As he pours, he says, “I’m not convinced.”

“Did you argue with B’Elanna? Did you tell her that you wanted to try again?” Kathryn settles on the couch with her wine. 

Tom shakes his head. 

“Then something she said or did changed your mind about wanting to try again. Your past is a springboard for understanding, so use it and then embrace your present or change it to a present you can embrace.”

Tom finds the currents of this conversation as roiling as the ones in the Bay outside his window, so he changes the subject. 

“I got my duty assignment.” He sits next to Kathryn on the couch. “Came through about an hour ago. Headquarters asked me to program simulations of nebular conditions to add to flight training.”

The corners of Kathryn’s mouth curl up. “Headquarters asked for that, did it?”

A warmth fills his chest and he grins. “You! You did this.”

She clinks her glass against his, a quick, high-pitched sound of celebration followed by a sip of Merlot. “I may have reminded a few admirals that Starfleet could update the simulations with knowledge from the only pilot to traverse the Paulson Nebula — a man who also happens to be an award-winning holonovel author. You’re a two-for-one deal, Tom.”

Kathryn takes a bigger sip of wine and, as her hand lowers her glass, Tom notices a dark purple wine stain on her upper lip. It’s there for a second, then her tongue darts out and licks it away. Her lips are red and shiny.

He blinks.

Kathryn is his friend. 

She’s helping him out.

That’s what friends do.

Tom stands, suddenly aware he’s a single man drinking wine with a single woman. 

“I’ll replicate dinner.”


	6. Chapter 6

They keep this up for four months, Tom having Kathryn over for dinner or her inviting him to her place. They walk together from headquarters unless she needs to meet him later because she has velocity or tennis or parrises squares. 

Sometimes Kathryn cancels because she wants to check on her mother, whose hypertension improves, stabilizes, then worsens in a frustrating cycle. Most evenings, though, the Merlot flows and Kathryn and Tom talk for hours about whatever topics come to mind.

One evening, Kathryn has a party and introduces Tom to her friends in San Francisco. Only a few are in Starfleet; most are academics. Tom likes them. He mentions “Kathryn’s philosophy” to one and receives a quizzical look. Kathryn takes Tom aside and tells him she doesn’t discuss her viewpoints with just anyone. Embarrassment twists his stomach, but not only for his faux pas. He didn’t realize, despite all the changes in her since _Voyager_ , that Kathryn remains a very private person.

When Tom looks at her at times she doesn’t expect, like when he’s programming the replicator or setting a plate in front of her, Kathryn is watching him with thoughtful eyes. She’s always been one to touch a forearm or a chest or a leg, but she begins to keep her hands folded or at her sides.

When she laughs, Tom remembers what laughing with another person is like and he joins in.

When Tom has lunch with Miral, he listens to Miral chatter about summer classes and then the start of the fall term. He feels lucky to have this extra time with his child.

He feels lucky to have this time with Kathryn, too, someone he enjoys talking with, someone whose cheeks become rosy when she drinks her wine too fast, someone who has to scoot forward when she sits on his couch because she’s short and wants at least one of her feet to reach the floor.

At work, he checks the chronometer to know how many hours it will be before he sees her again. 

She smells like coffee, of course, but it’s not bitter. It’s rich and warm and Tom figures Kathryn must have always smelled that way, but he must have forgotten. He wonders how he could have forgotten something that flutters his stomach and brings a grin to his lips. He wonders if Kathryn always grinned back. 

One night, Tom finishes work early and decides he will respond to Harry’s latest subspace letter and then work on his holonovel until Kathryn arrives for dinner. Tom’s writing is actually faster now that he’s busier, and the simulations he’s creating at headquarters have taught him shortcuts in holocode. Despite all the changes in his life, Tom should be able to deliver the next Ace Monroe story on time. 

He’s tapping at his keypad when the door across the hall slides open. 

“Where’s your girlfriend?”

The voice is low and, when Tom turns, the woman is leaning a hip against her doorframe, her long legs crossed at the ankle. She’s Trill, with spots that hug her jet-black hairline, then disappear into her Starfleet turtleneck.

“Excuse me?” Tom’s cheeks warm at what he perceives as an accusation.

“The redheaded admiral you spend so much time with. I’ve walked past you both in the hallway, shared a lift a few times. I thought you and she were joined at the hip.”

“I’m sorry,” Tom says. “I don’t remember seeing you before. I’m Tom.”

She holds out her hand, fingers together, thumb up, elbow loose. “Sazah.”

“Nice to meet you, Sazah.” 

Her grip is firm. 

“So,” she says, “the girlfriend? Is she not feeling well or something?”

“She’s my friend, not my girlfriend,” Tom explains. “I’ve only been divorced for a few months.”

Sazah clucks her tongue, but it’s compassion, not judgment. “Three years for me. My husband and I just couldn’t make it work. It’s hard, isn’t it?”

Tom’s mind flips through dinners with Kathryn, his flight simulation work at headquarters, time with his daughter as she matures into a young adult. 

“Actually,” he says, “I’m fortunate. It’s been a pretty easy transition.”

“That’s good.” Sazah’s hip leaves her doorframe and she straightens to her full height.

She’s beautiful. 

She lives across the hall.

She’s single, just like he is. 

But Tom has written enough holo-novels to know how this would go. 

He falls for the leggy divorcée and alienates his steadfast friend when the two women don’t get along.

Or he begins to date the leggy divorcée only to find out his friend has developed feelings for him … or he has for her … or they have for each other, but neither wants to make the first move because they’ve known each other for so long and his divorce is fairly new and there’s the small chance their feelings could be familiarity or hormones or something else that isn’t what they both think it might be, what they’ve never been able to relax into before because there was always something that prevented them from even thinking about stepping up to this precipice where they are now.

Tom’s eyes widen. 

“Thanks, Sazah,” he says. “I’m glad we talked.”

He hurries back to the lift, so intent on his plan that he brushes past a man without noticing him — or hearing Sazah’s squeal of delight as the man, her boyfriend, greets her by picking her up and swinging her around as he plants a kiss on her lips.

***

When Kathryn arrives at Tom’s apartment a few hours after his talk with Sazah, he greets her at the door, takes the usual bottle of Merlot, and sets it on the dining table.

He gives her a vase of pink flowers.

“Peonies!” Kathryn’s eyes crinkle with her smile. Her elbows straighten as she holds the vase out to see the blossoms.

He hasn’t let himself truly look at her body until now.

Tom marvels at the strength in her arms and legs … the subtle tuck of her waist … the curve of her breasts … the expectant look on her face. 

Oh, God. Her blue eyes are fixed on his and she’s waiting for him to say something. 

“Everywhere you feel is home for you, you have flowers,” Tom says. “I want you to feel at home here.”

“Oh, Tom, I do feel at home here.” She sets the vase in the middle of the dining table, studies it, then picks up a low stem and hooks it over a higher one so the bulbs bump against each other. She faces him. “Having you in San Francisco has been delightful.”

He worries the hammering of his heart will knock his commbadge loose and send it clattering to the floor. “Why?”

“Why?” The middle of her bottom lip disappears behind her teeth.

Tom is suddenly sure that Kathryn, like him, has blood racing and a bit of nervous sweat and a dry throat because they fell into this slowly and now the riot of emotions needs permission, somehow, to bloom into a new bulb.

He reaches out and touches her hand, his thumb barely brushing between her knuckles and her wrist. Yet Kathryn inhales so sharply her nostrils tremble.

And Tom’s voice is strained as he says, “Are you okay with this?” and he wants Kathryn to understand his words can mean his hand on hers or the promise of more or whatever she wants.

But Tom doesn’t get an answer to his question. Kathryn’s badge chirps and her fingers shake as she taps it and Phoebe Janeway’s cry comes through, “Katie, Mom just died.”


	7. Chapter 7

In the nearly two decades Tom has known Kathryn Janeway, he has never seen her stand absolutely still, her mouth slightly open, her hand unmoving over the commbadge she just tapped.

“Katie?” Phoebe’s voice is ragged. “Can you hear me? You need to come home. The medical center has questions and I can’t handle that and the kids and —”

“I’ll transport right over,” Kathryn whispers. “What happened? The new medication was supposed to be helping.”

Phoebe explains about hypertension spikes and cardiac tissue that didn’t respond to regeneration, then begins to yell at a child. She cuts the comm with the word, “Hurry.”

And Tom and Kathryn aren’t perhaps tiptoeing toward being lovers anymore. When he puts an arm around her shoulders and walks with her to the lift, there’s no spark, only comfort. 

They don’t discuss whether he will accompany her. They simply step up to the transporter pads together. 

From there, it’s a blur of Phoebe shoving three kids at Tom who feeds the children dinner while their parents and aunt are at the medical center. He puts the children to sleep in a guest room, leaving the door open a crack in case they need anything.

The floors of Gretchen’s home are spotless, so Tom sets his boots by the front door.

The woodgrain on tables is rubbed smooth. 

Upholstered chairs are thin in the seats. 

Tom breathes in the smell of paper books that line the shelves and he looks at wall hangings, mostly photographs and Phoebe’s art. He likes a picture of Kathryn at about age eleven with a tennis racquet and the same determined set of her jaw that he saw so often in the Delta Quadrant. 

Socked feet find one arm of the Janeway living room couch while Tom wedges a throw pillow between the other arm and his head. When the sisters and Phoebe’s husband get back, Tom wakes up to their debate over whether to wake him.

“Get out,” Phoebe says, but her tone is one of loving exhaustion. “Go sleep in your own bed. Thank you for watching my monsters.”

Kathryn comms for transport to her apartment building.

“Come on,” she says to Tom when they materialize in her lobby. Kathryn’s face is blotchy, but she seems cried out, like she left all her tears and energy in Bloomington.

When they get to her apartment, she says, “We need to talk, but not tonight. Take the left side of the bed. I’ll be there in a minute.” Then she disappears into the bathroom. 

Tom had thought Kathryn would send him to the guest room.

He doesn’t usually wear pyjamas, but Tom replicates and puts on a pair with long sleeves and long pants.

Kathryn stumbles out of the bathroom in a nightgown that comes up to her neck and down to her ankles. She doesn’t even look at Tom, she just climbs into bed and then shuffles until she’s in his arms.

He holds her knowing that it doesn’t matter at what age it happens or the quality of the relationship — losing the last parent means becoming an orphan, stripped of the unique safety of people ostensibly older and wiser as a generational buffer between life and death. All that matters tonight is being her friend.

They fall asleep with their heads on the same pillow.

***

Kathryn is still asleep when Tom wakes up. His bathroom situation is urgent, though, so he extricates himself and hurries to use her toilet, sitting to pee so the sound won’t be as loud. He doesn’t want to disturb her rest.

Tom slides back into bed knowing he won’t fall asleep. But he can think through flight simulations or Ace Monroe plots and be there when she wakes up.

It doesn’t take long. 

“No funeral.” She says the words before her eyes even open. 

Tom stares at the ceiling. “No weddings, no funerals — why?”

He’s wondered this about Kathryn’s family. Owen had a full, Starfleet memorial with honor guard. Tom knows from Kathryn’s stories that her father had no service. Both of Kathryn’s marriages were civil ceremonies with just the couple, officiant, and required witnesses. The _Voyager_ crew found out from announcements, the first with Kathryn smiling and the second with her expression unreadable. 

“Janeways are deep-feeling people,” she says. “We don’t like to put ourselves on display, especially under extreme emotional circumstances.”

They breathe together.

“But at my dad’s funeral —”

“I didn’t expect to cry the way I did. He and I had a falling out before he died and it all hit me when I was sitting there.”

Tom rolls so he can see Kathryn. “I didn’t know that.”

Her arm rests over her eyes. “He — and my mother — told me not to marry The Asshole. At least I was able to tell her that she was right.”

A queasiness hits Tom. “Do you consider my dad some sort of father figure?”

Her nose crinkles. “No. He was a valuable mentor. But, with all due respect, I would never want to be his child. Make him proud and there’s no better person. Disappoint him and he’s vicious.”

Tom’s stomach settles. But now he worries he has hijacked what should be Kathryn’s mourning time. “Do you want to talk about your mom? What does Deltan philosophy to focus on the present suggest when the present is painful?”

She shrugs, her arm still over her eyes. “To be in pain. To grieve because grief is appreciation or regret for the past, and the loss of a hoped-for future. The present is to let those emotions run their course, to understand the love that drives them.”

The comm chirps.

“It’s probably Phoebe.” Kathryn throws back the blanket as she swings her legs out of bed. “Go to work, okay? I’ll comm you.”

When Tom leaves the apartment, the sisters are discussing cremation plans. He has a productive day and finishes an entire simulation. He’s walking out of headquarters when Kathryn comms him. 

“My place or yours?” she says without preamble.

“Either,” Tom replies. 

“My sister and I scattered the ashes today. I’d like to sleep in my own bed.”

“I’m on my way.”

***

Tom regrets not getting to know Gretchen. Kathryn tells him stories about her mother and he can almost taste her brownies, hear her sing, feel her embrace. He understands how this kind-hearted, strong-willed woman raised a kind-hearted, strong-willed daughter.

He sleeps in Kathryn’s bed, always in his replicated pyjamas, always chivalrous. She’s on bereavement leave and he works his regular schedule. When Tom has lunch with Miral, she asks him what’s wrong and he says Kathryn had a death in the family. Miral gives him a long look, then asks, “What’s with you two?” and Tom answers honestly that he has no idea. The days he has off he goes with Kathryn to Bloomington where she and Phoebe prepare Gretchen’s house for sale. Phoebe’s husband assists inside while Tom plays with the kids in the cornfields.

“You’re good with my little monsters,” Phoebe tells Tom one evening. She sits next to him on the back porch glider as the kids run around in the yard. “It means a lot that you’re making this process easier.”

“Thanks.” Tom looks at his dusty trousers and pats them to shake loose some of the dirt. “My sisters did all this for my parents, and I didn’t really get involved except showing up for funerals. I should have done more.”

Phoebe shrugs. “You know what my sister says, ‘Live in the present. Use yesterday’s pain to make you better today.’ Sounds like you agree.”

“Well,” Tom frowns, “when you put it that way, it’s obvious. ‘Learn from your mistakes and keep going.’”

“Of course it’s obvious.” Phoebe watches her children try to turn somersaults. “But Kathryn spent her whole life tangled up in duty and guilt. Our dad always said if there was a smooth path and a rocky one, Kathryn would choose the rocky one every time. She needed a grand solution, something outside of herself, to break that cycle.”

They sit together, the sun dipping low but the children playing too nicely to disturb. Kathryn emerges through the porch door and Phoebe looks up. 

“One or two more days, Katie? Then the house will be ready?”

Kathryn nods. “I think a new family can be happy here.”

“Go home.” Phoebe stands and embraces her sister. “See you tomorrow.”

It’s early enough to walk to the transporter station, so Tom and Kathryn set off. He’s been thinking about what Phoebe said, about breaking lifelong cycles. 

He told the truth about Caldik Prime and was pushed out of Starfleet. 

He joined the Maquis and got caught on his first mission. 

He married B’Elanna and, even though he knew their marriage was a mess, he left it to her to decide to end things. 

Whenever Tom has taken a chance, it’s blown up in his face and he’s let it happen. He didn’t fight Starfleet to stay, didn’t appeal his conviction, didn’t talk to his wife about their problems. 

He doesn’t want it to be that way anymore. 

He won’t let it be that way anymore.

Tom and Kathryn arrive at the transporter station, both too caught up in their thoughts to have chatted on the walk. 

“Come to my place?” he asks.

“All right.”

When he opens his door for the first time in more than a week, Tom sees the peonies on the dining table. They droop a little, but the stems and bulbs look mostly unchanged. 

Kathryn pats one, her hand curving around the fat flower. “Fresh water,” she tells the bouquet. “I’ll get you fresh water.”

While she does that, Tom taps the keypad for the couch to convert into a bed. The last time he was here, he asked Kathryn why she liked having him in San Francisco. Tom believes now that he was a coward, expecting a bouquet of flowers to propel her into understanding his feelings, expecting her to do the work because she always has, from inviting him to the simulator for what, in hindsight, was her attempt to staff the Paulson mission, to her confiding in him on the _Ramon_ , a gift of trust he didn’t realize was rare and precious. 

She sits next to him on the bed and fatigue is in the slump of her shoulders, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands. He almost wavers, almost decides to keep putting it off. But every night she’s simply climbed into bed and tonight she looks at him with eyes that are trying to focus, trying to see him through her mental and physical exhaustion.

He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

“My timing is bad,” he says, his fingertips trailing across her jawline. “But I’d like to kiss you. If you don’t want me to, I won’t and we can just go to sleep. No matter what you decide, I’m your friend and —”

Her lips are pressed to his.


	8. Chapter 8

Their first kiss is closed-mouth and delicate. Their lips nudge in affection and her hand rests on the back of his neck in both tenderness and bone-weariness.

When they pull apart, she says, “Sleep,” and he understands that’s what she needs. He excuses himself to the bathroom while she replicates a nightgown and changes. When she joins him in bed, he wears his boxers and t-shirt instead of bothering with pyjamas.

Their second kiss is in the morning. Tom wakes up first. He uses the toilet, then wraps himself in an extra blanket and sits on the floor to watch the tumbling waves of San Francisco Bay. When Kathryn stirs, she stumbles to the bathroom, then looks for him.

“Down here.” He opens the blanket and she sits, the blanket over their shoulders and pooled in front of them. 

He touches her arm and it’s goosebumps. The nightgown she replicated is for summer and it’s fall — not much more than a year since she called out to him on the campus of the academy. 

“I like the water,” Kathryn says, her head on Tom’s shoulder.

She’ll warm up in the blanket. It’s thick and there’s the body heat of two people inside. 

“What do you like about it?”

Her hand rests on his knee. 

“I like the movement, how every second is different but it’s all because of what came before. Each wave affects the next, even if the wave is no longer there.”

His palm is on her back between her shoulder blades. He can feel through the thin material of her nightgown that she’s not so cold anymore.

“Like your mom? She’ll always affect you.”

“Like my mom and your dad and the Delta Quadrant and the Paulson Nebula and everything else good and bad that brings us to now.”

She turns her head and his lips meet hers and this kiss starts out sweetly, like their first one. Then there’s a sound in the blackness of his closed eyes. The sound comes from her and it’s a low and it’s contentment but it’s also desire and need.

He pulls her onto his lap and her legs are warm around his hips. Her fingers are in his hair and their tongues slide against each other and he tilts his pelvis so his erection won’t poke her. But the sound comes from her again and this time there’s a hint of annoyance, so he lets his pelvis do what it wants and he feels her smile against his mouth.

Her nightgown is tossed outside of their blanket.

His t-shirt joins it.

But he’s not twenty-five anymore or even thirty-five and his hips are starting to hurt, so he pulls away and says, “I have a bed, you know.”

She takes his hand and leads him there. Leads him to his own bed that he invited her to, but he smiles because that’s who she is and he’s not sure when he fell in love with her, but he is and knowing he is going to be with her has him almost painfully excited.

The bedsheets are cold but that doesn’t last long and then there are sounds from both of them. He’s gentle with her, both because he hasn’t been with anyone in a long time and wants to last and also because he knows this probably won’t be the most mind-blowing sex she’s ever had. She was married to a Deltan and he isn’t going to try to compete with that. But he wants to delight her, to tug with his teeth and tickle with his hair and map her body with his fingers. He wants to send her soaring and keep her there as long as possible.

And he does.

When their trembles ease, he gets a towel and smooths it over the wet spot so they can cocoon under the thick blanket in the middle of the bed.

“So good,” she murmurs, her leg hooked over the curve of his waist.

“I love you,” he breathes and instantly curses himself. It’s too much, too soon, and he takes in air to apologize as a lazy grin spreads across her face.

“I knew that when you gave me the peonies, but it’s nice to hear. I love you, too.”

Tom’s laugh is so deep their stomachs bump together and the bed shakes again. 

Kathryn has talked about Gretchen most mornings until one of them has to leave for work or Bloomington, and this morning she says, “My mother knew I was enjoying spending time with you, that I was hoping for more but not needing to push forward until you were ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“I’m ready, too.”

They hold each other.

***

“Yeah, I figured.” That’s what Miral says, but she smiles slightly. “Mom is seeing someone, too. A guy she’s served with for a while.”

Tom isn’t surprised, but he knows B’Elanna never cheated on him. They talked about it when they packed their things. _Bogh jatlhqa'_ , B’Elanna had said. “Rebirth,” in a rough translation from Klingon, but with a connotation of a solitary personal awakening.

It occurs to Tom as he and Miral pick at Bolian sushi in a restaurant near his office and her dorm that Miral hasn’t said anything about her romantic life since starting the academy. She dated a little in high school but has never had a serious relationship. 

That Tom knows of. 

“Hey,” he puts down his chopsticks, “Mirabella, you can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

The slight smile turns shy. “Sure, Dad.”

He wants to warn her about the Susie Crabtrees who break hearts and the Maxwell Burkes who instigate trouble behind a veneer of sympathy. He wants her to be safe from the cruelties of love while enjoying its pleasures.

But Miral is the equivalent of twenty human years old. If they are going to stay close, Tom needs to do what his father couldn’t, he needs to transition from being a source of wisdom to a pillar of support as Miral makes her own choices. He can offer his opinion if she seeks it out or if she’s in danger, but he has to trust Miral to live her own life. 

“Are you happy?” Tom asks. 

“Yeah.” Miral’s smile breaks like a sunrise and Tom knows, he _knows_ , she’s in love but not ready to talk about it. “I’m happy.”

“Then I’m happy, too,” Tom says, and even though they’re both in uniform and San Francisco is a stuffy, Starfleet town and Miral wants to be taken seriously as an officer, Tom reaches for her hand and she holds it like she did when she was in preschool and they would cross a busy street together.


	9. Chapter 9

The Janeway farmhouse becomes the Achebe farmhouse. Fall becomes winter becomes spring. Miral introduces her father to her girlfriend and he likes her very much. The cadets join Tom and Kathryn for dinner sometimes and Miral is so polite and official that Tom recognizes Owen’s Starfleet genes in her and Kathryn sees it, too.

“You can call me Kathryn,” she reminds Miral. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Miral says. “I will.”

When Miral passes Kathryn’s Advanced Borg Studies class with an A, she shows up at Kathryn’s apartment door without being invited or having commed first. Tom is there, but in the guest room writing Ace Monroe holocode and Miral doesn’t notice him even when he pokes his head out to see what’s going on.

“Did I deserve it?” Miral’s face is pinched, her hands twisted in worry. 

Kathryn ushers her in. “Of course you did. Your grandfather taught me how to be an officer and your dad earned a B minus in his father’s Survival Strategies course. I would have assigned whatever grade your work merited.”

And it all comes out.

Miral’s achievements being something her mother and father would actually discuss together. 

Her guilt over begging for a sibling she later learned her parents tried and failed to produce. 

Her hope that the academy would be a place where she could start fresh only to be slammed into the legacy of the Paris name by professors who knew her grandfather.

They’re on the couch, their knees angled toward each other, and Kathryn grabs Miral’s hands. Tom backs away from the door and sits on the guest room bed where he breathes slowly and evenly, trying to manage his pain over having no idea Miral was suffering for so long.

“Use it,” the admiral tells the cadet with the lieutenant commander listening in. “Know you have the capacity to achieve, know the limitations of your perspective, know you stand on the shoulders of a powerful family but you’ll make your own mark on a Starfleet that is fortunate to have you.”

When Miral leaves, she says, “Thank you, Kathryn,” and Tom is grateful because B’Elanna is a wonderful mother and he thinks he’s a pretty darn good father, but sometimes a parent isn’t the person their child wants to confide in and maybe Kathryn can be a mentor for Miral.

Like Owen was for Kathryn.

“Did you hear that?” Kathryn asks from the guest room doorway.

Tom nods. “My daughter trusts you. A wise choice.” 

“And she used my first name!” Kathryn crows. “She’s getting comfortable with me.”

Spring becomes summer becomes fall and Tom has written two Ace Monroe adventures and more than three hundred nebula simulations since moving to San Francisco. He receives a promotion and a new directive — upgrades for flight simulations across all of Starfleet. More options, faster enemies, different spatial conditions. He dives into the work. 

Tom and Kathryn have been spending some nights at his place, some nights at hers. She has the larger apartment while he has the better view. Finally, a two-bedroom Starfleet apartment becomes available on the edge of the Marina District and they get it. When they unpack, holo-images of Miral’s childhood sit next to the sunrise from the route Kathryn would run with her first husband. Phoebe’s paintings hang on the walls, including a few that belonged to Gretchen. Outside the windows, the waves tumble in San Francisco Bay.

When they make love in their new bedroom, it’s theirs, not his or hers, and Tom believes this means something. 

He begins to code a new Ace Monroe story, but not for publication. Fall becomes winter becomes spring. Miral and her girlfriend break up, then Miral has a new girlfriend and Tom likes this one just as much. Kathryn leaves on a two-month mission to study subspace compression anomalies and Tom spends time with her friends that have become his friends, as well as his former neighbor Sazah and her boyfriend-turned-husband. Sazah teases Tom that she knew his life better than he did and he can’t argue. 

When Kathryn returns from her mission it’s late summer and Tom gives her a few days to acclimate to the time change, to the season, to living in a shared apartment instead of solitary quarters. 

Then he asks if she’ll accompany him to headquarters holoroom eight. Ace Monroe has a mystery only she can solve — to catch the thief who has broken into Candrine’s and stolen fourteen bottles of the finest Merlot in the establishment. It’s a trans-galactic adventure to find wine bottles one by one in the hidden rooms of mansions, the lakes of villages, the workshops of artists.

When she finds all fourteen, the thief steps forward and it’s Tom, not a simulation. He confesses to the dastardly heist, but asks Kathryn to open the bottles to see the letter burned into the bottom of each cork.

They spell out “will you marry me” but she only gets to “will you ma” before she leaps into his arms, kisses him soundly on the mouth, and says yes.

***

“Tell me again,” Tom teases. 

Miral rolls her eyes. “Dad.”

She’s in uniform. Not cadet — officer. Miral’s collar is empty, though, as they walk toward the graduation ceremony where she will receive her first pip. 

After two transports from Bajor broke down, B’Elanna threatened to assemble a new engine herself. The third transport made it to Earth, but the delays mean B’Elanna and her boyfriend had to rush from McKinley Station straight to the Archer Center for graduation. 

Tom can’t wait to meet the man.

“Please,” Tom says. “One more time before we see Mom.”

“Fine.” Miral groans. “He was in Starfleet and had an accident. He left Starfleet and joined the Maquis. He got caught and went to prison — but not Federation prison, Cardassian prison — and was pulled out by the Bajoran militia for a special mission. The mission took longer than expected and he eventually met mom.”

“And his eye color? His name? His height?”

Miral doesn’t answer because they’re at the Archer Center and she’s broken into a run. B’Elanna turns just in time for Miral to embrace her. 

“I worried you wouldn’t make it,” Miral whispers. 

B’Elanna’s eyes are closed as she holds her daughter. “I would have rebuilt that warp core with my bare hands if I had to. Nothing would keep me from this, Mirabella.”

Tom sticks out his hand to the man standing next to his ex-wife. “Tom Paris, pleased to meet you.”

The man’s handshake is solid. “Thomas Riker, it’s a pleasure.”

He promised Miral he would behave, so Tom starts with one of the topics Miral approved. “It’s my understanding you went to the academy with my wife.”

Thomas grins, his blue eyes somehow angelic and devilish at the same time. Tom’s liking for the man deepens. “Yes, B’Elanna mentioned that. Kathryn Janeway. I went on a fraction of a date with her, but she’s memorable.”

The laugh that bubbles from Tom spills over to Thomas and the two men follow B’Elanna to their seats as Miral rushes to join her class. Kathryn is in the faculty section. Tom waves to her, inclines his head toward Thomas, and winks. Kathryn waves back, rolling her eyes. 

That night, they all have dinner at Tom and Kathryn’s apartment, and the Exoplanetary Politics major with a shiny pip on her collar receives toast after toast to her future in Starfleet.

When Miral leaves for parties with her classmates and Thomas and B’Elanna head for their hotel, Tom pulls Kathryn away from the dishes she was loading into the recycler. 

“Kiss me.”

“I kiss you all the time.” She reaches for another dirty dish. “I want to clean up this mess before we go to sleep.”

His lips press to her neck once, twice, again.

Her hands still. 

“I don’t want to sleep quite yet, do you?” Tom asks. 

She leaves the rest of the dishes on the dining table. A vase of peonies sits in the middle, of course, and the bottle of Merlot is drained.

Tom follows her to the bedroom. 

So much has changed since the day Miral moved into her academy dorm room and Tom is grateful. It’s become familiar to him to be open, to discuss his thoughts and learn his partner’s opinions, to have friends he’s comfortable spending time with.

To make love.

Clothing lands on the floor, the mattress dips, hands roam. Sometimes he asks, sometimes she does, most of the time there’s no need and they just know. But tonight he says it. “What do you want?”

She slides down and he’s inside her. 

His fingers tease her breasts.

Her body shudders and her hand caresses his cheek as she says, “To stay in this moment forever.”

**Epilogue**

“Sulak got his Starfleet Academy acceptance letter today. Was it his sophomore year in high school that you said he’d grow into himself? You were right.

“His sisters sent congratulations and Miral and T’Dor will be here in a few months to move him in. They’ll be empty nesters.

“It goes by so fast.”

Tom looks at the window for a moment, to the waves tumbling in San Francisco Bay, then rubs his eyes. 

“I’m having dinner with Sazah tonight and her new boyfriend. I asked if he’ll be husband number five and she giggled, so probably. I hope this one holds his liquor better than the last guy. Remember that time we all went to Fisherman’s Wharf?”

There’s a lump in his throat, and Tom coughs it away.

“I’m living in the present, I promise. I would do it for me, but I’m doing it for you, too. Forty-eight years of being your husband taught me a lot of things and I won’t regress just because you’re not here.”

They discussed this. A person is more than biology, she had said. That’s why, when she got the diagnosis, the first thing she did was ask if, once the disease ran its course, donating her body to Starfleet Medical would help research for a cure. When the doctor said yes, she filled out the forms immediately.

“Your sister comms me every few days. We have good talks. Harry’s great-grandson is doing better. They’re predicting another week and the therapy will take so he can go home. 

“Oh, and that simulator that was driving Admiral Lavelle crazy by rendering a trail of bubbles behind Klingon Birds-of-Prey? They caught the prankster today. I got a round of applause for getting away with it for so long.”

Tom checks the chronometer. 

“I’d better get going for dinner. I’ll tell you how it goes.”

Tom leans over and presses his lips to the silky petals of the pink peony that hangs closest to him from the bouquet in the vase. He pushes away from the dining table and eases on his jacket. The arthritis in his fingers doesn’t respond to treatment anymore, but he can manage the jacket fasteners.

He turns off the apartment lights and sets off for dinner. He wants to get there on time.


End file.
